• Peace means something different from ‘not fighting’. Those aren’t peace advocates, they’re ‘stop fighting’ advocates. Peace is an active and complex thing and sometimes fighting is part of what it takes to get it. Jo Walton

Other Blogs

RSS Peaceful Awakenings

  • Someday I Will Be Doing Research Again
    Until that point apparently I will just pop in once a year or so and remind people that it is the Opet season, a time when we show civic support for our broader communities here at Peaceful Awakenings’ Take On Kemetic Social Values. If anyone wants to join me, The Emboatening Crew on Kiva is […]
  • Opet Again
    Just popping in to remind everyone that with the Opet season upon us again, the Emboatening Crew is still rolling to support Kiva loans. (My office renovations are going well if slowly, so who knows if that means I’ll get more work done when they’re done.)
  • CowOfGold Moving
    An update on my previous post: Cow of Gold will have a new home here when the maintainer has a chance to put up the site again (with some revisions, apparently).

RSS Hills of the Horizon

  • Hills of the Horizon: The Past is Another Country
    The problem with extrapolation from history is that nothing is testable. The evolution of a religion over time is not a predictable and easily comprehensible thing, where we can look at a point in time and say, "It was like this then, so it would be like that now." The process of deciding what needs […]

The Tree

There are many stories about the tree who spans the worlds.

The tree is rich and nurturing: her fruits feed the needy, her shade shelters from the weather, the hollow in her trunk is the womb of the dead. She grows astride the gates of dawn, and the sun and all those who might pass do so as her gift.

The earth aches and reaches upwards always, searching for his love, the arch of heaven, his every tree and mountain and stalk of grain striving for her touch. And she, at times, is the tree, and they may touch at the horizon.

The lord of life and death governs the unseen, the secret ways, the realms of the mighty and the gates of rebirth, and sings to his love, the throne, the great power, keeper of her father’s governance of all being. And she, at times, is the tree, and her roots go deep.

The distant one whose eyes span heaven rules over all he can see, with claim on his grandfather’s throne which his father passed to him and his mother guarded, and resides within the embrace of his love. And she, at times, is the tree, and her branches span wide enough to hold even him.

The tree is wedded to all the worlds. Her sons know the way to pass between, to walk from shadow to shadow and open the passageways, walking dog-footed, wolf-footed, jackal-footed, wherever they do please.